“Sir, do you believe in ghost?”
The class was so eagerly to get another ghost story as usual. Nothing makes them more interesting than hearing the stories of fairies, ghouls, genes etc.
“How many of among are you sure that a ghost can come right now here? Or in the midnight the same place?” I asked. Most of them were not sure of right now but approved the midnight as they believed ghost was always “alive” in such wee hours.
I had been dealing with considerably hallucinated young minds that were accumulated by innumerable horrible stories of the spirits and extra-terrestrial phantoms with different spectacles and shapes for quite long time. I was often helpless to paint a good shade of rationality in irrationally conditioned world of my pupils. Those were such times where anybody with a bit wild imagination could cook sort of ghost stories to intimidate them and to get strange pleasures out of it.
I remembered how I was a bit cruel to my brother who was just young to me, scared of darkness always held me with his body very closely when we walked through the darkness to reach my home from nearby temple without torchlight. I used to find a strange pleasure to see his frightened breathless face that asked me for pity.
Ghosts always followed my brother in his dreams and his loneliness.
“It was my father who told stories of ghosts he met and removed the ghost fear from our minds gradually.” I told the class.
“Many times he saw them very near and once he even shook his hands with one of them.” I found it was interesting and the pupils were eager to get into the real story.
Many years ago, my father visited a far away city. Me and my brother were young and expecting his return in the evening. He had seldom stayed elsewhere other than our home in his life. He was a village man and lived with a sort of principles and punctuality inherited from my grandfather. Ours was a rustic village where wooden electric posts had started appearing here and there and the villagers were in a long wait to see a first bulb to glow. We were afraid of darkness; we had a kerosene lamp which burnt throughout night. Many of unseen insects had made noise of silence and Jackals of the night were howling one after another at the darkness.
“You can have your supper and go to bed; father will come late.” mother told us. My heart started beating fast thinking how my father could get into home that night. That too in the midnight of a Friday; the ghosts were having their revelries with flesh and blood.
I got up early morning and looked for my father. He was as usual sleeping with my brother. While having breakfast I told him how we were frightened by his absence at night. I was bit dumbstruck to hear from him that he reached home midnight all the way walking from the town.
“How could you come across Bhoothpara?” I asked him. Bhoothpara was a haunted place where even day time people dare not to walk. Our minds were filled with the horrible stories of that cursed place where strange incidents took place time to time.
“I wanted to tell you; I met a ghost yesterday night. I even shook hand with it. I didn’t surprise at my father’s words as it was his habit of giving lightness to whatever grave situations.
He continued. “I was on the one end of the long narrow road to Bhoothpara. The moon light was so bleak that cloud covered it partially. I could feel the other distant end of the mud road so familiar with its red soils and round stones.
Singing meanwhile a folk rhyme to evade the loneliness and to forget about the never finishing walks of mine, I saw the other end of the road, where Bhoothpara starts, two round red eyes!!”
My brother became breathless, he widened his eyes. “Then?”
“It was turning round and coming close to me; I felt. Though I didn’t believe in such things I was bit frightened and thought of turning back and took on my heels. With all my strength I decided not to do so. I had to face whatever it might be. I stepped so fast to reach out those big red eyes to ensure that it was a hallucination. To contrary to my belief I felt those were real eyes and becoming clearer to my vision.
I was almost reaching the other end of the long road and further to the spot at Bhoothpara where those burning eyes appeared. I made the way by moving the dried bushes in front of me with a stick one hand and a torch light in other hand. I closed my eyes and opened them frequently to make sure of the reality of that scary night. I must have moved further more.
I caught him!!
It was a familiar face with two torches made of dry coconut leaves in his hands waving them in the air”. “Who?”, we asked.
“Beerappu, the drunkard! His wild boozing habits in the midnights was interrupted perhaps the first time”.
“Oh! Sir it is you! Forgive me for my irresponsible act. I could not find any suitable place.” He folded his hand.
“I took his hands and said that it was okay. I reminded him how many of the villagers would have run by seeing his ‘red eyes’ in the midnights. A few of them might have been unconscious by seeing them with their fearfully hallucinated minds. Had I been a coward I would certainly have not got myself in to the fact.” My father concluded.
I looked at my brother. My father had to tell a lot of such real stories from his experiences later years to remove my brother’s obsessive fear about ghost that he inherited from a distant great grandmother who loved to tell ghost stories out of her pure imagination.
I looked at the class; it reminded me my brother who was always insisted my father to say some more stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment